Fingerboarding @ 30 Part 2
When I got my first Berlinwood it was a little bit different than the ones today. My first one I got second hand from my friend, Jeremy. He upgraded to a 29mm so I bought his old one. It was 26mm wide as that was the standard back then. Pro trucks weren’t a thing back then so it had Tech Deck trucks, O-rings, Riptape, and some wheels that I am honestly forgetting. I believe they were early bearing-less Flatface wheels.
Back then if you wanted to use bearing wheels you had to do some extra special truck tuning. It involved taking the axles out of Tech Deck trucks, putting the wheel on a newer longer axle, and using some J-B Weld to secure everything in place. As you can imagine theres a large margin of error using strong adhesive so close to a small bearing so it’s something I never personally attempted but I have seen it done. You could also get inverted kingpins by knocking the old one out and installing ones made by Flatface and a couple other companies. I remember Jeremy had a setup with those mods and Winkler Wheels on a 29mm green/red dyed Berlinwood.
A couple months later Blackriver released some new graphics and I really wanted one. Back then you had to go through some hoops to purchase from Germany online, I think you had to exchange your currency outside of PayPal or something. I barely knew what PayPal was at the time. I asked my friend and it turned out he also wanted one of the new graphics and was putting in an order, he offered to add my deck and I could pay his Mom with cash.
I still remember the day they arrived. I had just started driving around then and I went straight to his house after school. We opened the box and there was my red cat Blackriver deck. Slapped on some Tech Deck trucks and Flatface wheels (I had some with bearings by now). I still remember how smooth the setup felt compared to my Close Up and Tech Decks. I moved to a new house around this time and it had these sick marble counter tops. I was very stoked about them and would spend alot of time trying to grind this marble ledge in an awkward spot behind the sink.
Later that year my girlfriend at the time got to go to Germany with school. They visited Berlin and she brought me back a really nice Blackriver/Bollie complete. It was so insanely cool to have something straight from the store. I remember fingerboarding a bit in college but around 2009-2010 is when I lost touch with the scene. I got out the at the worst time because the best was yet to come. Later that year in 2010, if I remember correctly, the Blackriver Trucks were first released and the rest is history.
It’s crazy to think how far the hobby has came since then.
